A Strange Turn of Events
by Terrible at Writing
Summary: Jaune was actually quite confident that he would survive his time at Beacon Academy, but when one day a time-travelling sorcerer shows up at Beacon and tells him he'd apparently "Disturbed the very balance of the multiverse" and was going to have his body and soul be obliterated if he didn't return an ancient, all-powerful artifact hat had been fused to his soul… Well, crap.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **Hey guys! I'm going to be writing my first RWBY non-crossover fic! I've decided to separate the author's notes from the story itself as someone has suggested, too.**

 **I know that this fic will incorporate Marvel elements, but I feel it's just disconnected from the comics/movie universes enough to warrant a singular RWBY tag.**

 **Oh, and this won't be an AU of any kind. All the characters are as they were in the show.**

Jaune Arc got airsick.

That was a law of the universe. There just _weren't_ exceptions to that. If he stepped foot onto an air transport vehicle of any sort then he was going to throw up. The day it didn't happen was the day Beowolves started hopping on one foot and singing.

Just because he knew it would happen didn't make it any less painful though. He retched and gargled as he spewed the last remainders of his previously delicious breakfast into the uncomfortably familiar black plastic of the Bullhead's trash bin.

And as he clutched his stomach one final, strained gargle, the cursed aircraft took the moment to rub his pain into his face by shaking violently, presumably in a rightwards turn to lose momentum. It also served to throw him off balance from his already unstable position, sending him careening across the room.

In his disoriented state, Jaune just managed to catch a glimpse of the horrified expression on a blonde-haired girl's face as he flew towards her.

Well, he probably shouldn't start the day off by ending up sprawled on the ground on top of another student.

His pale blue eyes flashed green, and the world froze. It wasn't a gradual slowing down, but rather like taking a picture. All movement ceased in an instant, clouds hanging motionless outside the window. The cursed humming of the Bullhead's engine had also disappeared, leaving behind an almost unnatural silence.

Jaune threw his body weight to the side, altering his trajectory just enough to brush by the girl. He rolled over on the floor, hitting a steel wall with a muffled _thonk_.

Letting out a breath, the blonde struggled to his feet. Thankfully nobody had seen that, not that it was possible for someone to _have_ considering people didn't tend to move when frozen into a moment in time.

He took the time to straighten two of the girl's golden strands of hair that he had knocked aside, before allowing time to begin to flow as fluidly as it had before, in just as short of a moment as it had stopped. Jaune blinked, shrugging off the tension in his body caused by the strain of maintaining a short period of stopped time, the sensation not unlike that of letting go the reins of a horse.

The blonde girl, who had looked like she was in the middle of a terrified scream, whirled around with widened eyes.

"Wai-wha!"

Jaune waved. "Hello."

She continued to stare at him. "How'd you get here!?"

Oh for Oum's sake. She was one of _those_ people. He noticed the stares starting to be directed towards him too, and the traces of whispers from the people around. He didn't need to draw this much attention to himself, thank you very much.

Trying the best for an amiable smile he held out a hand. "Well, I applied for Beacon and was accepted due to the headmaster seeing my abilities as worthy of this school. I don't see the relevancy of that though. I'm Jaune Arc, nice to meet you."

"Well, Jaune, I'm Yang. Yang Xiao Long, badass and over-all hot girl, to elaborate. But you didn't answer my question"

Jaune feigned a confused expression. "I don't understand."

Yang threw her hands up, gesturing towards the garbage bin. "Oh, don't play dumb. You were over _there_ , and you also were definitely going to hit me. Now you're standing behind where I was."

Before he could open his mouth to respond however, a smaller girl pushed in front of the blonde. She was considerably smaller, with black hair. Dressed in a corset a mix of crimson and black, Jaune couldn't help but think of her as exceptionally cute - in a less sexual way than her undoubtedly more mature sister, however - with her large, silver eyes and almost puppy-like expression.

"Yang! You can't go around grilling strangers like that!" Said girl whined, before suddenly seeming to notice him staring. She immediately flushed in apparent embarrassment, smiling meekly. "...Hi?"

Jaune was once again denied the opportunity to speak, as Yang flicked the girl in the face with a teasing grin on her face. "And you're _soooo_ qualified to give me advice on talking to strangers, eh?"

The small girl huffed, rubbing where the blonde had poked her angrily - which looked strangely adorable as well. "B-but… You said you…"

"I said I what?"

"I don't know, you're just _wrong_!"

Yang laughed brightly, erasing any suspicion of Jaune's that the interaction between the two girls was anything but friendly. She reached out with two arms, embracing her companion and lifted her, struggling, to face him.

"Eh, don't mind that. Let's just forget about what happened for now." she shrugged with a smirk. "I'll take this moment to introduce you to my sister. Her name's Ruby, and as you can see she's a pretty awkward person. I'm trying to get her to make friends so why don't you talk to her?"

Looking at Ruby's indignant expression as she struggled in Yang's arms, Jaune couldn't help the small grin that wormed it's way onto his features. "You… Might want to let her go first."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **So, how was that? Evidently Jaune has time-powers, but I won't be giving any background information/exposition until later.**

 **I'll take this moment to inform you that in this story, Jaune _didn't_ fake his way into Beacon - his records are all 100% non-fake and he was accepted into Beacon legitimately, so he's going to be a lot more confident. He's just as weak of a fighter as he is in the show though, but you just _might_ be able to guess why he's a lot better in actual combat in this story.**

 **That's it. Good reading guys!**

 **Pun alert somewhere in this chapter (and the title). Don't kill me.**

Stephen Strange sighed in irritation as he glided lazily between the towering skyscrapers of Vale. His cloak flapped animatedly, tugging his shoulders left and right as it seemed to gawk at the colourfully dressed people making their way through the streets below it.

He wasn't supposed to be here and he didn't _want_ to be here, not to mention Tribunal knows what would happen if he left Wong in charge of the temple for more than a couple of Earth-time days. He'd arrive back home and find everything in the freezers replaced by that infernal _Chow Mein_ the gluttonous man loved so much.

So, one could imagine how he felt when he realized that he, Sorcerer Supreme, succeedant of the Ancient One, brilliant former surgeon, overall ladykiller, and Protector of Earth had _somehow_ managed to forget his sling ring at the side of his bed.

As such he would have to wait until the others noticed his extended absence, which wasn't a comforting thought - he hadn't bothered to calculate the referential time in this particular world so his rescue might come whenever from the next millisecond to five hundred trillion years later. Heck, this universe might have underwent gravitational collapse and maybe a second hadn't even passed on Earth yet.

But all that wasn't even his only problem now. Stephen frowned, glancing down at his chest. Or more accurately, the lack of _something_ that should be hanging there. And the almost foreign absence of the familiar warm flow of power it sent through his very being.

The Eye of Agamotto had been stolen. It was what had him waking up to the frantic shouting of many alleged " _Masters of the Mystical Arts_ "running around in panic. Of course the news Wong gave had sent a chill through him, but being the person he was, he couldn't afford to allow his composure to break. Imagine what would happen if his already throughly unnerved disciples realized that their teacher who was supposed to know _everything_ was also freaking out.

What ended up happening was that he decided to break the rules… _Again._

Sure, dimensional travel was prohibited to sorcerers, but when you get an _infinity stone_ \- an artifact that has the potential to cause the very universe to wither and die in an instant, mind you - stolen, those rules tended to go out the window.

He couldn't bring any others, however. A repeat of the last time someone inexperienced with the minute differentials between parallel universes tried to cast spells in one was something he wanted to avoid. And despite how unreliable his good friend Wong was, he did have to leave someone with a certain amount of authority to watch over the others. Make sure Dormammu didn't try to play around words with his promise again, someone didn't accidentally link the mirror dimension to reality. All that.

Luckily though, the Eye wasn't hard to track. Technically finding an artifact of that size in an entire space-time continuum would be like trying to find a needle in an ocean-sized haystack, but in this case it was more like having a satellite tracker on it, considering the sheer amount of cosmic energy the stone radiated. The task still wasn't easy of course, because it was an entire _universe_ and those tended to be big. At the very least, however, he'd always have an innate sense of the stone's direction and distance.

That sense allowed him to calibrate the portal to the right world - Thank god, otherwise he'd be stuck on the wrong planet _and_ unable to get anywhere - was screaming. He could _feel_ the warping and disturbances in time the Eye caused. All the more reason to bring it back home as soon as possible. This dimension probably didn't have enough integrity to withstand powerful cosmic forces and he didn't want to be in it if something triggered a structural collapse.

Things weren't too bad though. The moment he got ahold of the blasted thing back he should be able harness it's temporal power and convert it into energy and open a power. A terribly inefficient transfer, yes, but considering the _infinite_ power an infinity stone contained it really didn't matter.

He just hoped that he didn't screw something up (again) and end up centuries into the future.

…

Well… What a _great_ start to her promising beginning of her career as a huntress.

Ruby cowered, flinching as the white-haired girl continued to rain down her wrath upon her.

"Sorry!" She squeaked, holding out both hands before her as if warding off a demon.

The gesture didn't seem to do anything to placate the absolute terror of a girl. " _Sorry_!? Do you have ANY idea of the damage you could have cause?"

Actually, she really didn't. But that probably wasn't the best thing to say right now. In the end Ruby ended up with a confused "uuuuuuhhh…" instead.

"Give me that!" The girl's eyes seemed to be _shining_ in malicious light as she snatched the case from Ruby's hands. "This is _Dust_! Mined and purified from the Schnee quarry!"

"Uuh…?"

The girl threw her hands up, growling frustratedly. "Are you brain dead!? _DUST_! What we use to fight Grimm!"

Well, _yeah_. Of course Ruby did know that. It's not like it's just a _little_ hard for someone to respond properly when you were screaming in their face!

She blinked, trying to keep herself from getting angry.

"Yeah… I knew that."

Just her luck, however, when she felt a tickling in her throat. She shook her head, trying to hold it down, but was powerless when the dust that had entered her windpipe earlier dragged her into a fit of violent coughing. Unfortunately the action didn't disable her hearing.

"Are you even listening to me!? What do you have to say for yourself!"

"Ah…"

"Hello!?" The girl snarled again, waving her hand in front of Ruby's face.

"Aaaaaah…"

"Are you _ignoring_ me!?"

" _Aaaaaaaaaah…._ "

"That's _it_! I cannot _believe_ the barbarism of some peo- _"_

" _CHOOO!_ "

…

Jaune frowned, turning in circles and completely unable to marvel at the incredible architecture of Beacon Academy.

Of _course_ the twenty seconds it took for him to head into the nearest bathroom to clean up and come _rushing_ out was just the time it took for everyone to completely, utterly disappear. He probably should have slowed down time a little when he left the group but he _really_ didn't want to tax himself so much after all the energy it took him back on the Bullhead to prevent disaster.

Unless he found a way to turn back time, though. He was lost.

The blonde sighed and kicked the pebbled ground angrily as he realized that the fountain sprinkling an arc of water into the air that broke into a million colours of rainbow was the one he'd come across _five minutes earlier_.

"Who the fudgesicles designed an Oum-damn school to be a _maze_!?"

" _CHOOO!_ "

Huh?

It was somewhere to his left, that a sound that he would describe as a mix between "sneeze" and "nuclear explosion" blasted into his ears. Cocking his head in that direction, Jaune tried to pick up some more.

"… _Dunce!_ … _Immature… UGH!_ "

A sharp voice, though muffled by distance but still very clearly belonged to someone _extremely_ angry followed the shockwave.

Hmph, seemed like someone was in trouble.

Pausing as he thought of his choices, Jaune shrugged and made his way towards the origin of the noises. The courtyard had somehow become deserted in less than a minute, so he might as well look for someone else. Not to mention that he _totally_ wasn't looking for someone to blame if something went wrong, or anything.

Nope, he wasn't a person like that.

…

Ruby groaned as she laid on the ground for what was probably fifty seconds felt like the same number of years.

Oh, _Oum_. What was she going to do!? She'd managed to cause an explosion, make a stranger hate her, and end up flat on her back in the middle of the school entrance - no doubt late for whatever meeting the scary woman had mentioned on the Bullhead. She was going to get _expelled_!

A shadow fell over her.

"Hey, Ruby."

Wait… That voice was…

Jaune!

To say Ruby "got up" didn't do her movements justice. That was implying that there was an in-between of the two states, standing and lying down. What was more realistic was she _shot_ to her feet like a bullet, to find herself facing empty air.

"I'm… Kinda behind you?"

She whirled around, face already flushed red in embarrassment. Why couldn't she make a good first impression on _anyone_!?

"I'msorryIgotuptoofast!" The string of words left her mouth without so much as a thought, and Ruby cringed at the raised eyebrow Jaune sported, him having held a hand out to help her up.

Jaune scratched his head, looking a little confused. "Why are you sorry? I just heard and explosion and decided to come over and check. Saw you lying on the ground and stuff. You aren't hurt are you?"

Well, he didn't sound like he wanted to belittle her or yell at her. Ruby let out a sigh of relief as looked up at her tall friend. (she hoped so, at least. Yang was _totally_ wrong when she said that she couldn't make any)

"I'm fine. I… Got blown up. Can we just ignore how you found me on the ground like that?" She added the last part a bit sheepishly.

The blonde laughed. "Yeah. _I can tell_. But say, do you happen to know where we're supposed to be right now and how to get there?"

 _Oh_ …

"Ruby-Gah! Slow down!" Jaune yelled, voice snatched away by the wind as he fluttered behind Ruby like a flag.

"We're going to be so _laaaaaaaaaate!_ "

Goodwitch was going to _kill_ them!

…

 **If you've read my other stories you probably know this, but please do tell me if you notice any grammar/spelling errors or in fact, anything that you think could be written better. I'm a relatively new writer so any opportunities for me to improve is welcome.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **Hope you guys are okay with my more dialogue-focused writing. If you didn't get the first section of this paragraph please do take the time to google "Doctor Strange" and it should fill you in on all the info you need to understand this story.**

 **I won't give that many spoilers, but I think you should have guessed as to where Jaune's time-control powers are from. You'll see more exposition regarding that later on and of course, those powers are going to make for some pretty interesting fights.**

 **Also _obviously_ Strange is going to end up meeting our RWBY characters. Because… Well… The description said so xD.**

 **That's it for now. Good day!**

 **P.S. Just as an explanation, Jaune thinks that his time-powers are his semblance. He does NOT know he has infinity-stone powers.**

Jaune collapsed to the ground, chest heaving. If it were anyone else he'd probably be bombarding her with mental curses and insults to their mothers, but thinking about Ruby negatively was simply _impossible_ , it seemed. All it took was her wide, concerned eyes and he found any and all anger that might have been burning inside him quenched instantaneously.

So instead, he accepted his friend's hand, and found himself hauled to his feet easily.

 _Woah, Ruby's strong!_

Well… More like he was weak. No matter what Jaune had to admit to his unimpressive physical condition and training. The only reason he'd been able to get into Beacon was because of that time he'd run into a pack of Beowolves and killed them by instinctively freezing them in time then tearing their eyes out - and ended up in a coma for three days from the strain, but luckily Ozpin didn't seem to catch that part in the report. Quite the lucky awakening of his semblance, if someone asked him.

That didn't really matter though. He'd need to improve quick if he were to succeed at this school. He hadn't really planned on _how_ , seeing as he never really expected to make it in in the first place, but hopefully his partner could be of some help in the learn-how-to-fight field. His combat strategy was pretty much limited to "stop time and smack the enemy into the ground with his sword", which really didn't work considering it took him aura to use his semblance and his aura pool was, in complete honesty, pathetic.

His thoughts were interrupted, however, as Ruby tapped his arm, chirped something about seeing her sister, and sped off. Her departure was immediately followed by a cough amplified through the speakers situated thorough the auditorium.

Jaune's breath caught as Beacon's headmaster walked onto the stage. His dress was nothing impressive, being a long green trench coat from what he could see at this distance, but this was _Ozpin_. The single most powerful hunter in the Kingdoms. He single-handedly trained some of the most powerful hunters of this generation following the Great War, without any of the infrastructure that was available to them now. The man might as well have been a living legend, standing in front of them. It seemed everyone else had thought similarly too, from the complete hush that fell over the crowds of students.

"I'll... keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people."

Ozpin was quite the adept speaker it seemed, as excited murmurs erupted during the pause he allowed, but were quickly cut off as he resumed his speech.

"But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

No one made a sound, and an air of expectancy hung in the air, along with the tension of nervousness. What was this "first step"? There clearly was too many people here so some people must be disqualified. How would they be judged?

The questions Jaune had, and he was sure everyone also shared them, were not answered as the headmaster simply nods, and strides away. He ignored the confused glances that began to bounce about the students, followed by the hesitant and awkward clapping.

Glynda Goodwitch was the next to step up to the microphone, silencing the whisperings not with reputation, but with the fierce glare that swept over the masses and cut swaths of silence wherever it reached. Her voice was soft, but it wasn't like anyone was going to notice that with the light in her eyes that seemed to _melt_ whoever it was focused on.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed."

Everyone stood motionless for a good twenty seconds, as the headmistress departed in the direction of her superior briskly.

Jaune sighed in relief, breaking the silence as the terrifying woman left, the sound being echoed thorough the massive room.

"Mother of Oum, she's a scary one!" Someone hissed, the exclamation followed by various muffled agreements.

…

Ruby frowned, rolling over irately as sleep refused to find her.

Not that there was any chance of her falling into the sweet depths of slumber with _this_ kind of commotion going on.

"This is going to be _awesome_!" Her blonde haired buffoon of a sister might as well have shouted, bouncing up and down excitedly. And people said _she_ was hyperactive.

As she rolled over however, burying her head under the pillow, she felt two iron hands clamp around her waist, dragging her up and lifting her into the air.

Growling, Ruby kicked and thrashed, trying to escape Yang's grip.

"Yang! Lemme go!"

Instead of complying, the blonde just giggled. "Oh poor Rubaby, going to sleep already? There's Jaune! Why don't we go talk to him?"

When flailing some more didn't work, Ruby decided to use her ultimate weapon, only to find that Yang had already turned her head around, averting her eyes.

"If you're sending your puppy-eyes at me, it ain't going to work! Now go talk to your supposed friend if you want to sleep!"

What was with her sister tonight!? She liked Jaune, sure, but why in Oum's name would Yang want to trudge over half of the student body eleven in the night to talk to him? And why was everyone not sleeping either? Were people in Vale nocturnal or what?

"Yaaaaaang! Let me down!"

"Like you won't just run away?"

"I'll tell dad!"

"Oh yeah, because he'll _totally_ travel across a continent just because you complained."

But as her objections proved to have no effect on yang and she was carried over the rows of sleeping bags, Ruby could only pout angrily as she _felt_ the contemptuous smirks of everyone who must have saw what they thought to be a little girl in someone's protectives arms.

Yang had better pay her a _mountain_ of cookies for this!

…

Quite the good decision, it seemed. The three hundred Lien he'd spent on buying one of those pump-up X-tra comfort mattresses had proven to be worth after all. To think his sisters had laughed at him for "wasting money to pamper himself." He needed good rest to be a good hunter!

He was denied the chance to close his eyes however. As he snuggled in, he felt a finger poke into his side lightly.

 _No._ He wanted to sleep! Why the heck would anyone be looking for him? He knew exactly _zero_ people here at Beacon!

So instead of responding, Jaune shook his shoulder habitually, intending to ward off any further disturbances.

"Oh, don't you ignore me, vomit boy!"

Jaune didn't even have time to groan, as at that moment he registered two hands clenching the fabric of his makeshift bed, and flipping him roughly onto the ground.

Why was Yang here now and why did she feel the need to insult him and do _that_?

Feeling the irritation bubble up inside him, Jaune held himself back from saying anything he'd regret and instead turned to glare at the intruder to his privacy.

"Oh my Oum Yang why'd you do that?" The Ruby, hands scrabbling at her sister's side. Yang smirked at him, even as he felt all traces of anger ebb away at the sight of those adorable, wide, puppy-like silver eyes.

"So… Why are you here?"

The small girl shifted uncomfortably, cheeks going red as she no doubt tried to think of an answer. After several seconds however, she just threw up her hands and punched Yang. " _She_ dragged me here! Ask her!"

Jaune raised an eyebrow at Ruby's older sister, to which she did not respond in any way other than smile widely. "I wanted my sweet little Rubaby to break out of her shell! You seem pretty nice - apart from the vomit part - so I might as well have her talk to you a bit."

Wait…

"You forced your sister across half this room in the middle of the night to _chat_!?" He sighed as he felt his palm make contact with his face.

"Yep." Ruby grumbled.

Yang laughed, slightly awkwardly if Jaune hadn't misheard. So she _did_ have self consciousness after all…

What a surprise.

"Well, uh… So, Vo-Jaune, where are you from?"

"But why di-"

"Hey, that's true! It's kind of awkward not knowing where a friend is from. Me and Yang are Patch, where my dad lives!" His eyebrow began to twitch as he was cut off by Ruby's enthusiasm. Great. He knew how hyperactive she was and unless she somehow underwent a complete personality turnaround he wasn't going to sleep for a while. Yang shrugged, settling down beside him and apparently not one bit confused by her sister's sudden change from "incredibly awkward" to "unbelievably chatty".

Despite his grumpiness though, Jaune couldn't deny that he appreciated the company. (aside from the sleep-denial, of course) Ruby was nice to be around, and adorable. While Yang seemed to talk to him more because she came in a package with his new friend, she was mature and was friendly at the very least - not to mention beautiful, but that didn't have to do with anything. The blonde did have that teasing edge to her that he'd thought only existed in his sisters though. He'd _really_ need to watch out for that…

Crap, he still needed to answer Ruby's question. Said girl was still staring at him unblinkingly.

"I'm from Ansel. My dad works as a hunter, and my mom stays at home to look after my sisters."

"Oh, so you have siblings," Yang grinned. "I was wondering how you haven't started yelling at Ruby yet."

The statement earned her a puppy-like pout from Ruby that was surprisingly reminiscent to the expression Amber would adopt when trying to silence him about that ice cream she _totally_ didn't steal, and Yang proved to also be immune to those wide, pleading eyes when she wrapped an arm around the small girl and squeezed.

"Yang! Stop saying things like that!" Ruby managed in the crushing grip, legs kicking.

Jaune smiled as he watched the two struggle. They _were_ dysfunctional, sure, but it was nice. He hadn't expected to be able to feel the warmth of being in a loving family once he went to Beacon, but the interaction between the two girls was quite heartwarming.

Once Ruby had escaped the grasp of her sister though, the blonde directed her attention back towards him. "Huh. I have Ruby as my only sister. Are all your siblings sisters?"

"Yeah, eight of them." Jaune nodded. He purposely ignored the shocked looks he was receiving, not just from Ruby and Yang. He shrugged. "It's kind of… Crowded, and mother gets annoyed a lot but otherwise we love one another."

"Awww, that's so sweet!" Ruby squealed, hands pressed to face.

He would have pointed out that it was less so when his cookies disappeared every time he brought any home, were it not for Yang's devilish grin that he caught.

"Uh, Yang?"

"Well, your dad must have _really_ loved your mom to-"

" _YANG!_ " Ruby cried indignantly, dashing towards the apparent degenerate and tackling her.

Jaune could only laugh, as Yang overpowered her assaultant with surprising ease considering how strong Ruby had turned out, holding her down and delivering a devastating wave of tickles to Ruby's side.

"AHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAH, Y-YANG! STOP!"

Well, there goes everyone else's sleep as well…

He just hoped Goodwitch wasn't the one who came along to address the noise.

 **That's the chapter!**

 **Seeing as a lot of reviews told me not to separate author's notes they'll be here from now on.**

 **Doctor Strange will come into the story soon, along with explanations and exposition on Jaune's powers. (NOT HIS SEMBLANCE, which is what he thinks it is currently) For now, before things maybe get serious, do try to enjoy the cute interactions! I've always found Ruby and Jaune to be adorable together, though not necessarily romantically.**

 **And before I leave, please do tell me about any spelling/grammar mistakes, or just how I can improve! Thanks a lot in advance!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Welp, once again author notes are part of chapter now.**

 **I'll take this moment to remind you, as some people seem a bit confused, that yes, Jaune's time-powers require aura to use. I know that the infinity stones have _infinite_ power, but that's not the case with our favourite blonde. It'll be explained later on.**

Yang whistled absently as she walked down the corridor, enjoying the friendly conversation between Ruby and Jaune. She, of course, didn't fail to notice the glances or straight up _staring_ she received, and ignored them as usual. It was normal, and honestly quite unfortunate. Puberty and the hormones it brought had forced her to give up too many male friendships already. It was just lucky that her sister's new friend wasn't affected as such, and she hoped he turned out as nice as he seemed at first impression. She didn't want to have to punch his face in if he tried something with Ruby.

But that wasn't something to think about now.

Today was the big day. Beacon's initiation. Of course she was confident that she could _ace_ the thing no problem, there was the issue of teammates and partners. She wasn't sure if Beacon adopted the "find-your-friends-and-apply" system from Signal, but the first thing she needed to do was find someone that _wasn't_ Ruby.

Yeah, it sounded kind of heartless, but the girl really needed to break out of her shell, something that wouldn't be possible if she provided the easy way out. Ruby wasn't considered antisocial by everyone she knew for nothing.

Besides, from the way she was currently chattering away happily about weapons and completely ignoring Jaune's glazed expression, she wouldn't have any trouble finding a partner she was comfortable with.

That still left her alone. Preferably it would be a girl. She wasn't confident enough in the self control of teens their age to want to risk being paired with a guy, but the problem was that everyone either seemed to already have some arrangement as to teams, or kept to themselves in corners.

She caught the flowing red mane of Pyrrha Nikos out of the corner of her eye, but decided against asking her. She was a bit too famous and even though Yang was a girl who enjoyed attention, walking around everyday beside a celebrity wasn't that high up on her preference listing. There was also the snobby-looking girl apparently trying to get teamed-up with the champion, too, so she didn't want to get into that.

"Oh, look! One-zero-A. I think this is my row." Jaune gave Ruby a pat on the head - since when did her sister let other people do that? - and split off into the rows of lockers.

…

Well… This wasn't what Pyrrha had expected when she arrived at Beacon.

Vale was supposed to be a place where she could _escape_ her fame, to be able to build meaningful friendships uncorrupted by money and competition. She'd of course not hoped to actually meet someone _entirely_ unaware of her status, but she had dared to hope that she'd have a partner who at least allowed her to step of the isolating pedestal she was forced onto back at home.

But now, as _Weiss Schnee_ of all people that she could have first met, had started into a rant on how much they could achieve together. With her resources, and connections and…

Pyrrha tuned the white-haired girl out. Sure partnering with the heiress of a massive dust-corporation was an _excellent_ business decision, but she didn't _care_ about business. She wanted to experience what it was like to talk and laugh with people who viewed her as family, not smile for the cameras and give thank-you speeches.

Heaving an inwards sigh, the redhead struggled to maintain her polite smile.

"Well, that sounds… Grand." Pyrrha managed, as she vaguely caught Weiss mention something along the lines of being on a team together, past her thoughts. Even she almost cringed at how forced she sounded, but thankfully the other girl either didn't comment or chose not to comment on it.

She was saved from further conversation that would have no doubt become most awkward however, when someone bumped into the girl opposite her.

The boy jumped back a little, quickly regaining his composure and holding out a hand. "Oh, sorry!"

Quickly analyzing his appearance out of habit, Pyrrha noted his tall and slim frame - though that didn't say anything about his strength. Muscular mass kind of went out the window when aura was added to the equation, but his build did suggest him leaning towards speed as his strength. He had a confident posture, but his wide eyes, clearly apologetic, didn't paint him as arrogant.

Thankfully Weiss turned around to slap his hand aside, not noting the frown that she couldn't keep off her face. "You should be! Watch where you're going!"

"Now, there's no need for such hostility." Pyrrha quickly stepped forwards, stopping the apparently quite irritable girl before she could say anything more unpleasant.

"Well, uh, yeah. Thanks. I did say sorry." He managed a small smile as he said that, quite impressive in fact. "Anyways though. I'm Jaune. Your names?"

Wait, he didn't know her name?

A spark of hope ignited in her, flickering. Had he simply not taken a close enough look?

No. That wasn't possible. It wasn't like she had been standing far away from him. He truly didn't recognize her.

Pyrrha tried to keep the wide smile off her face, settling with a friendly grin. She hadn't dared to ask for so much, but it seemed that perhaps her first day at Beacon was going to start of quite nicely. Jaune's arrival had not only saved her from being stuck in a conversation with Weiss but also provided her with a chance at an almost too-good-to-be-true partner. And he didn't appear to have any crippling deficits. From the way he was rubbing his mop of blonde hair nervously, he also looked to be the "shy and friendly" type of person.

Her thoughts were quickly cut off as was treated to a disbelieving stare from Weiss, and he began to fidget with a corner of his shirt. "You… Idiot! I'm Weiss Schnee! Heiress of the SDC! Have you been living under a rock!?"

"I'm Pyrrha. Nice to meet you." She said, accepting his hand with a firm shake. She watched his eyes carefully as they did, happy to find no flicker of recognition in them.

Weiss pushed between them again, face red and sounding quite outraged. "Wait, are you saying that you didn't know her?"

"Uh… Should I?"

"YES! She graduated at the top of her class in Sanctum!"

"Sanc-What? Where?"

Stomping the ground angrily and thankfully unaware of Pyrrha's muffled giggles, Weiss pushed a finger into his chest, forcing the blonde back. "She's won the Mistral Region Tournaments four years in a row! A new record!"

"The _what_?" Jaune managed, now thoroughly baffled.

"Gah! This… You… I don't have to put up with this!" Weiss threw her hands up, huffed in exasperation, before turning to her. "Well, Pyrrha, I'll be on my way now. I do hope you consider my offer."

Then she stomped angrily away.

"I, erm, didn't mean to make her angry. Sorry for interrupting your conversation." Pyrrha started, turning to see the embarrassed expression on Jaune's face.

He was sorry about _that_? "Oh, no! It's perfectly fine! She's just… A little more short-tempered than most, it seems."

"Well, thanks. But now that I think of it, you _do_ look a little familiar. I don't know what she was talking about but I think I've seen you somewhere before."

That was hardly unexpected. She'd appeared on all sorts of media more times than she could count. It'd be surprising if he _hadn't_ seen her on a show at least somewhere. "I have featured in some television shows. Perhaps that is how you recall me?"

Jaune snapped his fingers, and if real life were a cartoon Pyrrha swore a lightbulb would have popped into existence above his head. "Oh, right. Aren't you on the cover of some cereal?"

Oh…

So not the tens of popular tournament broadcasts that were all over Remnant, no. But he knew her off the cover of _Pumpkin Pete's_?

Quite the interesting person, and the ideal partner, Pyrrha decided. Now she just needed to think of how she could ask him without having Weiss hunt her down.

 **Yay! Hope you liked that, and as always tell me about any mistakes I had made and what you think! ^.^**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 **Thanks for the reviews guys! I'll stick the authors notes in the story itself from now on.**

"AAAARRGHFLAAARGHBLEAAAAAAAHHH!"

Jaune hadn't meant to scream so shrilly. He wanted to be a hero that everyone looked up to, but when you had no real hunter training whatsoever and was launched off a hundred-meter cliff at a hundred kilometres an hour heroics tended to be the last thing to come to mind. His opinion on Ozpin had also taken a quite sudden dive. You just _couldn't_ be sane if you were willing to send a student you have absolutely no knowledge of in ability off a skyscraper-height drop. The man was definitely crazy.

Now was the problem of how he was going to get onto the ground _in once piece_.

Because of _course_ hadn't been prepared for an initiation where you needed your own "landing strategy"! Why the Oum would he need to know how to fall from the sky with no equipment?

Even as the lush green treeline - that would have been beautiful had he not been at risk of being torn to pieces by it, mind you - rushed to meet him, he caught the vibrant yellow Yang's hair out of the corner of his eye.

Wait… was she flying by firing her guns backwards?

Well, he wasn't going to manage that.

Scanning his surroundings and trying quite desperately to quell the panic rising within him, Jaune noted the various landing methods employed by others. None of which were available to him. He was a boy, nothing but a blur of green, dig his blade into a branch, spinning thrice around it, before disappearing under the leaves, and another student who _smashed_ into a tree, shattering the wood, before landing with a shockwave that even he, from hundreds of meters away, felt as a gentle breeze.

And great, during the time it took him to think he'd covered half the distance between him and the ground.

He couldn't use his own semblance to land. Being able to slow down or accelerate time did nothing to lessen the trauma to your body when you impacted a hard surface at terminal velocity. But it could, Jaune realized with a widening of his eyes, buy him time.

With a flash of green within his eyes, the flowing temporal river died, diminishing from a raging current to complete stillness instantaneously.

And despite the frozen world around him, Jaune was still plummeting towards the ground, to his almost certain death.

 _Right_ … What would it do for him if nothing else moved? He didn't control gravity!

He was going die…

No. No, he wasn't. He _couldn't_. Not when he hadn't even taken the first step on the road to becoming a hunter.

"SOMEBODY HELPPP!" Jaune screamed, straining his lungs. There went the "being respected" part of his goals at Beacon. But that didn't matter if nobody noticed him, or was willing to help. Aura would provide some protection for him, but it was nowhere near powerful enough to let him survive crashing into solid ground at this speed.

But three seconds later, if wouldn't matter anyway, for the beautiful canopy of the Emerald Forest had already reached him. He could only choke down another terrified scream in a last attempt to preserve his dignity, as leaves tore past his face. Jaune closed his eyes as he felt the last of the branches snap beneath him.

 _I'm sorry_ , he tried to tell his family. Not that they could hear him.

…

"What in the name of the Ancient One is going on here!?" The doctor cursed viciously, eyeing the scene before him with a mixture of disbelief and hate.

Why was there a hundred teenagers _flying through the air_ , for God's sake!

He'd traced the emanating power of the eye through the city, over it's suburbs, and onto the cliff behind a castle-looking complex. So far, the world seemed to be quite similar in technological advancement to Earth, albeit without the orbital infrastructure that had been established on the latter.

Not that he'd care any more about it past mild curiosity. And even then the emotion was insignificant compared to the _irritation_ that Strange felt. What kind of activity required the launching of teens off a _cliff_? What was wrong with the people here? How did this even work? He'd arrived in preparation for some kind of ambush, and thus had already a series of spells to create a revolving energy shield of golden runes around him. His most devastating abilities were also ready to be used in a moment's notice should he encounter any violent enemies. He hadn't noticed anything that might have had connection with the stolen artifact in the city. That, along with the lack of magical elements found, lead him to conclude that it had to be a trap set up by a relatively small group for him.

But this…

He slapped at his cloak, that had been tugging his shoulder to the left. "Stop. I'm not in the mood."

It paused, whistled hesitantly, but reached up and pulled on his hair. Then it tugged to the left again.

What now? He swore of there was a nuclear warhead heading towards him then he was going to turn the entire planet's population into squirrels once the job was done. Screw the rules. If you managed to annoy the Sorcerer Supreme that much then you were asking for it.

Strange spun around, scanning left and right for any threats but upon finding none, looked downwards.

 _Oh_.

It was a figure, blurred from such a distance but with blonde hair standing out clearly in contrast to the green around him. The person was flailing about wildly as he neared the trees. Not the most confident in his ability to not go splat, it seemed, unlike some others that were employing various rather _interesting_ methods to reach the ground safely.

He wouldn't have cared less, if not for the clear and incredibly powerful signature of arcane energy emanating from him. Upon a moment's inspection to identify that magic as temporal, there was no doubt.

The person was in possession of the Eye of Agamotto.

That person also appeared to be about to die.

Great, so now he was going to have to save the life of the thief of one of the most powerful objects in the universe?

Why would you take a celestial relic like the soul gem from some of the strongest people of a universe, escape to another cosmos, and then look to get shot into the atmosphere, and fall to your death?

No one answered.

With a put-upon sigh and a quick nod, the sorcerer's cape lost it's tension, allowing the man to fall towards his target.

…

A blur of red and blue, and a flash of bright orange fire. Then something wrapped around Jaune's waist and _tore_ him from his, forcing the air from his lungs in a painful gasp.

The gratitude, and amazement for whoever had saved him quickly died out however, as he was hurled onto the ground, the impact once again driving into his lungs and emptying them. He coughed, placing two hands onto the ground in an effort to steady himself.

He didn't get to rise, as a sharp crackle had him turning around, to see a burning lance of energy whipping towards him.

"Woah!" Jaune's eyes flashed green, instinctively freezing the weapon in place. Time screeched to a halt, even as he staggered from the stress of holding time back in his weakened state.

Climbing to his feet and struggling to control his breathing, he examined his saviour and assailant.

"Not a student" Was the first thing that came to mind. Not unless Beacon accepted grown men with smart-looking, well-trimmed moustaches. He had a slim face with sharp edges, and gray eyes that, even frozen in time, seemed to look a combination of dangerous, unimpressed, and amused. There was also a flickering flame in them that had Jaune's hair standing on end. He was dressed in simple robes of blue with cloth wrapped around his wrists and a crude buckled brown belt. The cloak a pure blood red on his back was much more flamboyant, looking like it had been fluttering in the wind dramatically before Jaune's semblance had activated.

A strange circle, almost appearing to be made of sparking fire, floated above one of his wrists, while streams of that same fire-like energy flowed from the fingers of his other hand, converging to form a whip like weapon that was currently raised, no doubt meant for him. Thankfully it had not. From the way the air was shimmering around it, it'd probably have burned through his skull.

Even under the strain of continued usage of his semblance, Jaune goggled. This man's weaponry wasn't dust. It just wasn't possible to harness the power substance to shape into weapons without some form of mechanism, clearly lacking in this person. It could be his semblance, and what an impressive one that would be in order to achieve this feat, but otherwise the strange armaments were a mystery to him.

A sharp crack rang through the air, crisp and clean.

His time was up. This was _not_ good. Of course he'd activated his semblance by instinct when being attacked but he was nowhere near strong enough to keep it going for the length he needed to dispatch this guy - and that would have been nice indeed. The man had tried to kill him! - and even know he could sense his control over the flow of time waning, as an uncomfortable pressure settled on his chest, reminding of his dwindling aura.

Jaune turned to run, the exact moment the still image of the world shattered, movement returning to his surroundings just as suddenly as it had left.

He heard the man's whip hit the ground behind him, hissing and crackling in a manned not unlike electricity.

The edge of the clearing he'd landed in was close. If he just managed to make it into the forest he coul-

"Oh, great. You know how to use the Eye, and I thought my job wasn't already hard enough."

The man sighed. "Go get him, will you?"

Whatever he meant by that, Jaune didn't bother turning to find out, instead lowering his head and trying to push himself even harder. He caught the sound of something whistling through the air behind him, ducking instinctively.

A bright red… And _empty_ cloakshot over his head, turning around him before him and somehow managing to loom threateningly without a wearer.

Jaune did not have time to question whatever his day had become, too busy choking as the fabric wrapped around his neck, _dragging_ him back towards his doom.

…

Strange wasn't sure what he was supposed to think by now, but under the stress and annoyance his sarcasm was the only thing that found it's way to his tongue.

"If you _do_ know what you stole does, you could have learned to use it a whole lot better." And he wasn't lying either. Why this thief had set the time dilation to one hundred percent only to stop it what might have been ten seconds later before escaping was beyond him.

It was a teen, seventeen years old by the look of it. Messy blonde hair, lanky frame, and overall not one would expect of someone who had gotten past the hundreds of layers of mystical barriers he'd erected to protect the eye. With a snap of the fingers his cloak unwound itself from the boy's neck, zipping up and taking it's place on his shoulders.

The blonde rolled over, struggling to stand. Of course he might have considered _politely_ asking for the stone back but considering how much trouble the guy had cause him, _and_ that Strange didn't know what he was capable of, he settled for the intimidation approach.

He strode forward, locking his fingers around the thief's neck, lifting into the air. The person remained limp, glancing into his "you're going to regret whatever you did" eyes - learned from the Ancient One, no less - fearfully.

"Um… Thanks for the… Save?"

Not the most impressive response, and not one he was looking for. He shook his arm, calling a small rune into existence beneath his hand to support the weight, turning his glare up another notch. At this point resisting the urge to laugh was becoming increasingly difficult, as sweat visibly began to run down the boy's face and he began fidgeting.

"Don't kill me please…?" He squeaked nervously.

This wasn't right. It should have been fairly obvious that some kind of trap had been set, or at least some resistance would face him, but this was just… Pathetic. This _child_ couldn't possibly be the thief. Hell, even the blundering, arrogant fool he'd been was better when he first started out.

At another time, in another world, maybe he'd have recruited him out of pity, but he still needed that universe-destroying stone back. A portion of his mind wandered, reminding him of Mordo's chattering about all that bill-paying business.

He _really_ didn't want to know what his bill was. Now he could add "assaulting a possibly non-threatening entity with magic" and to the long list of rules he'd broken.

Flexing his fingers, he summoned another glyph in his free hand. With a flick of his wrist a garro-ahem, _mystic whip_ slashed against the ground. He'd need to change the name of the spell as well. All the cool fireworks, hand gestures, and glowing runes and this was the best name they'd come up with?

He flourished the weapon, raising it above him and bringing it down on the thief. It wouldn't kill, but it should hurt enough to get the guy talking. The threat of having your hair seared off by burning whip tended to loosen your mouth.

" _Woah!_ " The blonde shouted, eyes widening to almost comical proportions. With a sharp twist and a kick of surprising strength, he launched himself away from the stream of crackling energy, thudding into the ground several feet back.

Strange winced and pressed a hand to his chest, breath catching when a portion of it's surface gave in to the pressure, caving inwards and sending out a sharp stab of pain. Broken rib, apparently. His opponent was stronger than he looked, not that it mattered. The bone was healed easily with a snap of his fingers and a _curare_ spell.

He briefly considered employing more… _extreme_ methods of attack. At this point he truly preferred a straight up fight. It'd end all this fishy business and at least he'd get a chance to finally let loose some frustration with a couple of good spells. Maybe he'd get lucky and this guy was only pretending to be a coward.

"S-sorry about that! Name's Jaune, by the way. You okay?" The blonde called, sounding strangely worried. He'd gotten up, and was standing a good ten metres away, watching him warily.

Nevermind.

And now he was _introducing_ himself? and _apologizing_? Why?

Even as a theory of how everyone on this planet was mentally challenged began to form in Strange's head, He swore when he got back to Earth he was going to start an inter-dimensional hunt for whoever had made him go through all this. He'd have his students practice casting _immolate_ spells on him, or have his cloak tickle the bastard to death. Maybe cleaning up Wong's bathroom after they went eating tacos was also a good idea.

He shook the wonderful thoughts of vengeance aside, crossing his arms.

Jaune - didn't that mean yellow? Why would you name your kid a colour? - glanced around himself, then looked back to the Sorcerer, raising his hands slowly.

"Look… I don't know who you are and what you want, and I don't think you want my Lien, but how about you… Uh, put _that_ down." He motioned towards Strange's hand apprehensively. "And then we can talk."

An eyebrow began to twitch. The thought of just killing this annoyance and taking the stone crossed his mind,

It wouldn't be hard. All it would take is a single blast of power, and he'd be gone, becoming nothing but a thin soup of plasma. The eye wouldn't be damaged either. Cosmic powers didn't work that way. It would be left as good as new on the ground. But he also might be innocent, and as someone meant to be a _protector_ , he didn't want the possibility of the weight of murder on his shoulders.

A sigh escaped his lips. They'd need somewhere less exposed. Bringing the rest of this world into this mess was the last thing he wanted. With how sane this planet's inhabitants were they'd probably identify him as some kind of dangerous criminal and start a manhunt for him or something.

He drew his hands up, releasing his hold on the burning runes occupying and allowing them to shimmer out of existence, the mystical construct dissipating without his power holding it together. Between his palms a sphere of light began to shine, growing rapidly in intensity.

"If y-you don't mind… Are you still trying to, eh, kill m- _OH OUM!_ "

Strange allowed a smirk onto his face as the shockwave slammed into the annoyance of a blonde, sending him once again tumbling to the ground.

He relaxed, in stark contrast to Jaune. The comforting malleability of reality in the mirror dimension that underlaid every universe served to be quite calming compared to the incredible thorn in his side this day. (or year, century, eon, depending on where you were in the omniverse) He hadn't realized how long it had been since he'd seen the disjointed and chaotic imagery that he hadn't realized he missed.

A wave of his hand, and the fabric of spacetime itself folded, resisting at first but submitting to the vast arcane powers at his disposal. The horizon rose up, roaring as the mountains in the distance stretched overhead, blotting out the sun.

Jaune's mouth hung open as he stared at the Emerald Forest, three hundred meters above him. Then he turned to Strange, choking and gesturing wildly towards the rotating sigil in his palm. Quite the most satisfying reaction.

Not as much, so, however, as the idiot took one more look up, and promptly spewed up chunks of yellow and green that he _really_ didn't want to know what used to be. Then he collapsed from his knees, curled up in a fetal position and began contracting violently.

Strange's face fell into his hands.

Why'd he feel the need to do that again?

 **Chapter is still complete. I'm trying to brainstorm what should happen in the future of this fic, so I'll be taking a while to try and organize the story. I have also merged the notes with the story, so I hope you guys are happy with that.**

 **Again, let me know what you think, and dropping a fav/follow would help/encourage me a ton! Thanks for being with me so far!**

 **P.S. I'm having a bit of trouble with writing in Dr. Strange's POV. It just seems a bit off, compared with what I wrote in chapter 2 beginning. If anyone has any pointers on why that is it'd help a lot too.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

This was _hell_. If there was one. It was airsickness on the shakiest of Bullheads, but a trillion times worse!

However that monster had done that didn't even matter! What did was the fact that the very ground he was standing on wasn't even stationary anymore!

And that man had the nerve to _facepalm_! Who bent the entire landscape into a U shape, then flipped the world upside down and expect others _not_ to get sick?

Jaune spasmed, ejecting the last of his breakfast. When the vomit was finally over he was left as an empty husk, brain filled with nothing but dizziness and pain.

Well, okay. Maybe that was a _bit_ dramatic. But considering how his plans for the day had gone from "find a good partner (maybe Ruby)" to "get away from this madman before he killed him", who could blame him for melodrama? Something else was wrong too, his surroundings having taken a fractured quality, as if he were viewing the world through the multifaceted surface of a crystal pane. Was this his semblance as well?

If so, just _what_ did it do and how powerful was he?

When he finally got up, the man was ten meters away, and looking a whole lot more disgusted than intimidating. Jaune threw his hands up. "I don't even know what to think about my life now."

"Quite the understatement." The man snorted, a glimmer of humour showing in his eyes, much to the blonde's surprise.

"But…" Jaune turned a full circle, fighting down the vertigo telling him that he was in fact standing inverted hundreds of meters in the air. "You… Did this?"

Two hands were thrown up. "No shit, Sherlock!" He paused immediately after the exclamation, frowning for a moment before a small, cheeky grin spread across his face. "Heh, I see what I did there."

Ooookay…?

"I'm afraid I... Don't know what you're talking about." Perhaps this man was from the outskirts of the Kingdoms? That would explain the strange things he kept saying. What it would _not_ , however, was how someone this unbelievably powerful would have gone unnoticed. From what he just did it didn't seem possible that all the surveillance Atlas had on the entire continent would't have registered this guy folding the very landscape around like paper.

The man frowned, face once more returning to it's default unimpressed image. "Back to business, I see." He flicked his wrist, and fiery glyphs drew out a sparking half circle in his hands. Perhaps Jaune would have been amazed by the intricate designs, also of that flame-like quality, had it not been thrown at him like some kind of blade, slicing through the air and burying itself into the ground an inch beside his feet and bursting into a shower of sparks.

From the smirk on the man's face, he hadn't been blown away by an attempted dodge about a second after the attack had already been finished. Then those eyes hardened, and with a blur of motion, lightning arced around Jaune. It didn't cause any pain, not having made any contact with him, but the uncomfortably intense heat from the bright blue fulmination told him just what it would do to him if it did.

"I'll be blunt. Something has been stolen from me, and I want it back." As if to emphasize his words, the lances of electricity increased in brightness, blistering heat singing Jaune's eyebrows. "It's an infinity stone, but you wouldn't know what that is. It's in a necklace, with a gem the shape of an eye and a green crystal set in the centre."

Blue eyes widened. Wasn't that…?

"And I know you have it."

"I don't! Or I mean, I do! It's not… On me!" he tried frantically, shaking his head as best as he could within the confines of electricity to denote just how _honest_ he was being.

The man raised an eyebrow, but the grim line his mouth was set in didn't exactly fill Jaune with confidence, but he did allow the lightning serving as a cage to die out. Jaune heaved a sigh of relief as cool air once more brushed against his face.

"Then pray tell, where _is_ it?"

The necklace… How could it be? He'd found it on the way to school five years ago! It was worthless! He'd had taken it to the jeweller and it had been refused! It didn't look good, either. The metal covering the stone at the centre insisted on staying closed, and once he did pry it open the gem - if it could even be called that - was dull, lacklustre, and most definitely _not_ valuable, but if that was what this man wanted…

"It's at home. I have it in my drawer. If you want it… I can, uh, take yo-"

" _Lies_."

 **Y'know what, sorry guys. I'm going to say "screw it" with the _Strange_ business here (get it? ^.^) and skip this part temporarily. I wrote this fic as an RWBY centric one and I don't want to spend too much time away from the story itself. I won't tell you guys what happened during the timeskip (sort of), but you should be able to figure it out. If you really want to know you can PM me, but later on exposition will make it pretty clear on what went on between Jaune and the doctor.**

 **Oh, and yeah, Strange sent himself and Jaune to the mirror dimension to talk, so that other people wouldn't, I don't know, see him holding a glowy-fan-blade thing to an innocent Beacon student's neck. And also because he gets to show off his powers. If you don't know what I'm talking about watch this.**

 **Chapter ends here because I don't want a timeskip in one chapter.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 **Yay chapter 7! I'm trying to write Ruby as the happy and naive, but more inexperienced than dumb kind of girl. If you feel I'm doing something wrong please let me know! Also I might have shifted my writing style a bit unconsciously, so if you think something's wrong do tell me.**

A blur of red and black, and a Nevermore exploded into gore with a surprised squawk that was cut off quite suddenly.

"No, birdy!"

She hadn't really wanted to do that. It was a tiny Nevermore the size of her hand, kind of cute actually, if it weren't a Grimm and wanted to murder Humans by nature.

Now, for the landing. Of course Ruby had wanted to go after Yang and be her partner, but big sister, ever the meanie, had just shot herself off into the distance with Ember Celica. It was _totally_ cheating! Shotguns had just as much kick but fired so much faster!

Ruby pouted. Maybe she'd look for Jaune. He was a nice guy and so far Yang didn't seem to want to bash his face in yet. She already knew him, too, which was _amazing_ as far as she was concerned because she wouldn't have to actually introduce herself. Judging by how she tended to meet strangers - lying on the ground or getting blown up - she was pretty sure she'd make a complete klutz of herself. (not to mention give Yang more, *shivers*, ammunition!)

But now she had to find her new best friend! It was kind of her only friend but that didn't matter.

She had tracked him easily when he was launched, and gotten quite worried too from how he was flailing around looking _not_ the most confident in his landing strategy. It was probably just nerves though. He'd disappeared into the trees and she hadn't heard an impact so he hopefully wasn't a splatter on the ground. She swore there had been a shimmer in the air too, just before he disappeared through the leaves, and that he'd suddenly changed direction from a downwards fall into more of a sideways tumble.

Was it his semblance? He _had_ been unnaturally fast on the Bullhead and she'd kind of glossed over it, but it was probably something incredibly awesome, so Jaune's even awesome-r that she thought!

Tensing her arms in preparation and raising her scythe, Ruby narrowed her eyes as she located a suitably thick branch that would support her weight.

A small "eep" escaped her as the razor blade of her weapon slammed into wood, sending shockwaves that would have broken a normal person's bone travelling down her arm. Even with aura, the impact was painful to say the least, but she ignored the strain on her arms, diverting her momentum diagonally so that her limb would not be torn from her body.

It would have been quite the impressive landing strategy as well, if not for the sudden crack, sharp and clear in her ears.

Ruby's eyes widened, right as the pivot of her rotation disappeared. There was a moment of weightlessness, but that quickly ended as the first of the painful blows on her way down hit her, driving every last trace of air out of her.

She then proceeded on her less-than-graceful thirty metre journey down the height of the tree, bouncing from one branch to another.

"Agh!"

"Ack!"

"Oof!"

 _THUD_.

"Ooooooooow…" Ruby whimpered from the small crater she was lying in.

It was agony. It felt like someone had taken a hammer and smashed every bone in her body to dust, then stuck her in a washing machine.

This was _exactly_ what she meant by first impressions! Oh gods, what if somebody found her like this? If Jaune was in the area then he might already be on the way! For Oum's sake she did not want to him to find her sprawled on her back a second time. Who knew what kind of idiot she'd look like?

Gripping her scythe that she'd almost miraculously managed to keep ahold of, Ruby weakly dug into the ground in an effort to regain her footing, only to freeze as a low growl rumbled through the forest.

 _Seriously!?_

Ruby didn't have time to complain, as with a furious roar an Ursa burst from the trees, claws digging great furrows in the ground.

It wasn't a threat, unintelligent from the pure hate and nothing else festering in it's eyes. The swipe that whistled through the air, slamming into a trunk and launching an explosion of wood chips into the air was easily dodged with a shower of rose petals.

Hefting Crescent Rose and stepping into a spin in preparation for a sideways slash that would take the beast's head off, Ruby instead was forced to flip backwards as a spinning blade of some sort - was it burning? - shot through the neck of the Ursa, hissing as it sliced through flesh and bone with ease. It flew over her head, ricocheted off something behind her, and cut back through the back of the already headless Grimm.

"Oh Oum, I'm so sorry!" Jaune yelped as he jumped over the fallen monster. Ruby caught the weapon had just almost decapitated her in his hands. It was a disk, made out of intricate designs and runes that seemed to be traced from lines of burning, sparking embers. It flickered out of existence almost immediately as he reached down to help her up.

"J-jaune?"

He checked the top of her head, worried expression on face. "Yeah, it's me. I'd hope you still recognize me. Are you okay? I didn't see you behind the Ursa. I was afraid I hit you for a second."

Ruby just goggled where the Ursa had been, now only small piles of black dust.

"What was _that!?_ "

"What was what?" A confused frown made it's way onto his visage.

Ruby stared at the blonde, and with a start of realization he rubbed the back of his head and laughed. "Oh, you mean my weapons?" With a flick of his hands they appeared in a flash of bright orange energy, emitting a low hum from before his opened palm. "Yeah, they're constructs of mystic ener-eh, uh, I mean dust." He closed hands, and it disappeared, like he had flicked a switch to turn it off."

Wait, so he could form weapons with _dust…_?

"That is _SO COOL_!" She cheered. This made him even more awesome than she thought! And he was already really awesome! The fact that her partner had an _amazing_ weapon (not as good as Crescent Rose, of course, but it wasn't fair to compare others to her baby) only made it all the better!

"Uh… Thanks?" He hazarded with a small smile. "So you are okay?"

"Yep! I'm okay-er than I ever could have been!"

Maybe her day wasn't going to be terrible after all! She'd managed to get partnered with her friend, and he had those super awesome circle fire-knife things! Now all that was left was to make sure that she didn't run into the crabby girl that seemed to want to yell at her at every opportunity and it would be perfect. Maybe that was tempting fate, though?...

"You _idiot!_ " A high pitched, female, and very angry voice yelled from some distance to their left.

Ruby paled, unconsciously turning to share a look with Jaune.

"Let's get moving?" He suggested with a grin that _absolutely_ didn't look the slightest bit forced.

She nodded frantically. "Yeah, I mean, the relics aren't going to retrieve themselves!"

 **That's the chapter! I hope you enjoyed, and as usual, please let me know what you think, and how I can improve!**

 **From now on most of the chapters won't be in Jaune's POV, but instead told in the perspective of other characters. It's so that I can keep what happened during the timeskip a mystery and also for something later that I won't spoil.**

 **If you like the more dialogue-focused writing that I've been trying out, please let me know!**


End file.
